JACKSONVILLE, Ill.- The Illinois College Esports team faced off against Grand View University in the MEC Championship this past Saturday. Due to late changes in the cLoL format, the top two teams from each conference are not guaranteed a spot in the national tournament. Only the winner of the MEC Championship would secure a bid to the national contest.
After a convincing series win vs Mizzou IC was poised to take on Grand View who going into the championship game had come off an undefeated regular season and a quick 2-0 series win vs Drury in playoffs. To go toe to toe with Grand View would be a tough task but IC was ready.
Going into game one both teams had strong showings in the draft with clear win conditions. IC jumped into an early lead dominating top side while stacking a possible twenty-one minute drake soul win condition. Unfortunately, Grand View would not be shaken so easily going into the soul fight after jockeying for mid prio Grand View found their opening denying the soul and out scaling IC's composition for a game one victory.
Going into game two IC got priority picks in Seraphine allowing for a strong team fight composition. After again getting to an early lead with top side solo killing their counterpart the game fell apart in the mid game at rift harold where Grand View's mid laner would pick up a triple. From there Grand View was able to accelerate the pace of the game and end it out.
Going into game three IC broke with tradition and pulled out the infamous Cassiopeia Teemo bot, a special of
Tony Bautista-Foti and
Sean Corley and looked to take over the rift. After coming up just short in the mid game IC was ultimately defeated. This takes IC out of national contention and puts them in second place in conference standings.
